


The Dead Ground

by breathedout



Series: Widows' Walks [3]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: (of a sort), Age Play, And simultaneous reverse age gap: thank you super serum, Attempted murder as seduction technique, Bad Communication, Blood Play, Body Dysphoria, Bondage, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical faked character death, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dirty Talk, F/F, Graphic descriptions of, Knife Play, Mortality, Murder girlfriends just can't stay away, Natasha is 117 but looks 30, Nonconsensual Body Modification, Scars, Sexualized Violence, Take it from Natasha: stasis is not the intended human condition, Warnings for people getting old, Yelena is 71, age gap, and side characters getting ill and dying, of the serum-induced variety, that happened in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 07:51:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16719366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/pseuds/breathedout
Summary: April 2047. Fifty years after she stole Yelena's face—and then, for the most part, gave it back—Natasha gets around to faking her own death for real.





	The Dead Ground

**Author's Note:**

> The dirty Natasha/Yelena porn my id is for some reason only now getting around to providing itself with. This will make much more sense if you read [The Grand Tour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465753) and [Reconstruction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11609271), both of which together are shorter than this story by itself. 
> 
> Huge thanks and heart-eyes, as always, to [greywash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash) for the insightful betaing of, and ongoing conversations about, this story and all the stories <3 <3 
> 
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> 
> **PLEASE READ THE TAGS!**

Her grocery delivery came at ten from the little town. Since dawn Natasha had been working out front, clearing off the fallen trees and branches from the storm the night before, dividing it into firewood cords—but throughout, she kept an eye on the time. At nine-thirty she stashed the chainsaw in the little barn and moved to the back. She tinkered with the setup on the solar panels until eleven, when she was sure she wouldn't face an interaction with the curious, pimpled delivery boy. Seldon? Silton? He always lingered. He had a cleft palate and she figured it was probably some combination of horniness and identification, because of her face. He probably thought she couldn't help it; that it had happened to her without her consent. 

Around eleven-thirty she actually got the solar panels working, which was a little unexpected but welcome, certainly. Since she'd come here she'd been keeping farmer's hours and longer: up with the sun and then working right through, into the night. Sometimes long into. Well, there was enough to do. The place was an old farmhouse, lakeside; a carved stone lintel on the chimney said 1807. The systems had been updated, but not recently. The kitchen dated from the aughts (Natasha: Prague; Laos); the electricity from the 90s. The outbuildings—the barn, the old summer kitchen—might be original. Their shells, at least, Natasha thought, might look more or less the same as they always had. 

She was doing the work herself, because she otherwise—because she wanted to. Because it was a fine thing to do. And because she didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone or explain anything to anyone or know anyone, at all. Everything she could, she had delivered: counter tile and tile cutter, paint and belt sander, sledgehammers and claw hammers, rotary saws, bandsaws, axes and pickaxes, vices and wrenches, a staple gun, a macerator, a glass cutter, a soldering torch, an industrial power drill: remarkable, she thought, how much she already had practical experience with, from before her death. 

The smaller stuff they were happy to leave on her doorstep but with some of the bigger items the deliverymen had invited themselves in. Had looked around her barn, and offered instruction. Opined on the cold, and the Patriots, and how many guys she'd need for this kind of job. They'd hitched up their pants and got a look around her space. This was undesirable, so she encouraged them to leave. After a while they did, and the next time they didn't stick around. 

By the time the leaves were off the trees she'd discouraged most of the neighbors, and was left alone. All winter, by the light of bare bulbs in the darkness, she'd worked inside. Her kettle screeched and the snow piled up against the windows, heavy and blanketing. The closest house was a quarter-mile away; she could knock down her kitchen walls at four in the morning and nobody would know, so that is what she did. That part had been almost wholly satisfying: swinging a sledgehammer over and over into plaster that crumbled and gaped and she had swung again and again until the whole room was down to studs. She hadn't bothered about shutting off the electricity, or turning on the heat; just let herself be battered, shocked, frozen by turns and at night she slept hard on the hardwood floors: planks three feet across. Natasha remembered and remembered: sometimes with her head pillowed on old white pine she dreamt of Siberia. Frozen feet in the Taiga, fleeing the pursuant dog-sleds: a forsaken child inside a forsaken child. At first light she was once more dead, so she got up off the floor and ate beef jerky from her grocery delivery and picked up her sledgehammer again and swung. 

In retrospect those had been her best days. Shockingly soon all the demolition was done, so she'd switched to the sander and the hammers and tile cutter. Covering up the studs and then covering up the plaster. Measuring, grinding, grouting, caulking. And then, as the snow started to melt, or at least to withdraw in its drifts from her walls and her windows, she had woken up one morning to sun through the kitchen window and realized—it was finished. There was nothing more to do. She'd backed out of the room, scrabbling on hands and knees until she'd hit the living room—still freezing, still cobwebbed, still thick with dust and mouse shit—and she could breathe again. And cough. And breathe. 

What could she do? She had a house, money, and a need to work. It wasn't like she could go back to—what she'd left. Or drive into thriving metropolitan Sandwich, New Hampshire and strike up a friendship with the locals. With diminishing enthusiasm she set to ordering more deliveries: linens, furniture. She scoured the living room and the guest bedroom; belt-sanded the floors and refinished them; installed solar panels and a heat-efficient wood stove in the living room; stopped up the flue in the massive old-fashioned roasting fireplace, which she painted white; resurfaced the big clawfoot bathtub and tiled the downstairs bathroom; and, shortly thereafter, withdrew to the upper floor. Now, as various volunteer flora pushed themselves stubbornly out of the ground outside her doorstep—bloodroot, hyacinth, lady's slipper—she had an entire ground-floor which looked like something out of a magazine, and in which she intensely disliked setting foot. She'd taken to sleeping in a narrow, creaky child's bed in the high gable, overlooking the lake. If someone had found her there—

But someone found her, instead, in the glossy new kitchen. Her guest didn't have to pick any locks, or jimmy any windows: Natasha wasn't spending a lot of time thinking about her own, for lack of a better word, "objectives" out here amidst the cows and the turkeys, but whatever they were they certainly didn't involve securing the house. The woman didn't even have to turn a doorknob, as a matter of fact, because Natasha, who was clearing debris from the the boggy area downhill from the kitchen, had propped open the heavy wooden side-door and the screen storm-door and had run in for supplies; so the woman just walked right in. One second Natasha was crouched down in front of the kitchen sink, rummaging for a fresh box of trash bags; and the next second the old machine inside her had clicked and whirred and without being aware of gooseflesh or pricked-up hair she had pivoted, thirty-seven weapons in this room within easy reach, three potential exits, trash bags thunked to the floor, chef's knife in one hand and a beer bottle in the other, back pressed to the counter, staring down the intruder standing in her kitchen doorway. 

"Well, this is," the intruder said. High eyebrows climbing higher. She had a gun in a shoulder holster under her motorcycle jacket, a couple knives and a length of rope in her thigh holsters, nothing in her hands. She didn't advance. She looked at Natasha's new double-basin Kohler sink and her white-and-teal mosaic-tiled backsplash; her view down to the lake; her white-painted cabinetry with the burnished drawer pulls and the teal accent color on the island. She looked bemused. She looked _familiar_ , because she was familiar. 

Yelena. 

"Picturesque," Yelena finished. That old snide quirk to her mouth, but her voice was different. Deeper; rougher. Natasha had to listen under the new surface of it to hear the Yelena she'd known saying, "Goodness. Full of surprises, Natasha Alianovna."

Twenty-odd years since Svalbard, and then they'd had—twenty seconds, if that, when they'd been face to face. Over four decades since Natasha'd seen her properly; and that girl, that child; barely out of her teens. Yelena would be—what now? She looked like a very fit seventy, which was—was probably right, Natasha thought. Her heart, thrashing like a hooked mackerel. She had felt distaste for this room since she'd finished it but now, now she was _repulsed_ , nauseated to be standing here amidst all these new-made surfaces while Yelena Belova watched her do it. Yelena probably looked seventy because she was seventy: she couldn't, after all, be much younger than that. Her blonde hair gone white-grey but it waved, still, around her face like when Natasha'd first tangled with her in Rhapastan and Madrid and Sydney and Basel. Her fair skin wind-roughened; sun-freckled; and she was solid now in a way she hadn't been then. Stately. Less thin and not remotely girlish; as if her body had hardened, compacted fat and muscle into a form long dictated by hard purpose. If she tipped her head back, Natasha thought, to expose her throat, would she still have that thin white line?

"Admittedly," Yelena said, "not how I envisioned you spending your death. Not even on my top-five contingency list, if I'm honest."

"Yelena," Natasha said, stupidly. She still clutched the knife, and the beer bottle. 

"But then," Yelena went on, conversationally, strolling toward Natasha over Natasha's refinished white pine, "I wouldn't have believed any of it, quite frankly. If you'd told me that Natasha Alianovna Romanova, Black Widow, would die at the hands of a _bullet_ ," and her eyes, narrowed, were still Baikal-blue, "at the hands of a common street criminal. That she'd let the world believe she was simply careless. That one day, well! She forgot to protect herself. That she went out one morning with a new recruit for—what was it? Breakfast? Groceries?" 

Her tone was musing, practiced, almost pedagogical: as if she were debriefing a room full of new recruits—which, Natasha realized, she very well might do. Regularly, even. To what use was her government putting Yelena, six decades into a career in international espionage? Was it even the same government? Was it any government? Was Yelena _Russkaya_ still, or—fifty years; anything could have changed. Natasha couldn't think. Yelena was three feet from her and all Natasha had was: I have to get out of this room. 

"Of course you had to have a witness," Yelena was saying, advancing. "That part I could have told anyone. A kid, to chase away the roughs and then take back to headquarters the news that you'd bled out on the sidewalk. I wonder how they took it. Hm? That zoo. Shook their heads, no doubt, like idiots. _Well, it happens to everyone in the end_ , they probably said. _Catches up with us all, you never know when your time will come. We'll give her a good send-off_ , like they'd never met you in their lives; good grief. _Guess the old woman was getting soft in her advanced age_ —"

Natasha swung the beer bottle and Yelena, quick as she'd ever been, blocked it; grabbed Natasha's arm and twisted and Natasha dropped the bottle and went with Yelena's momentum, ducking under her own elbow and butting her head hard into Yelena's solar plexus so that Yelena's grip faltered for a quarter-second and Natasha could pull her arm back into line with her torso and then crowd Yelena—back; Natasha threw a knee to the gut and in dodging it Yelena fell—back; rallied; shot out with her right and Natasha's knife clattered to the floor; then Yelena punched out with her left. Natasha stepped around the fist then crowded into Yelena's space again, struck up with her elbow so that Yelena stepped—back; and—back. 

"Russkaya," Natasha gasped, and bullied her, forced her into retreat. Yelena gave her hard swift jabs with her elbows and her knees until Natasha got her backed up against the white-and-teal penny-tiled countertop. Yelena grunted. Took the impact. The hand she reached behind her to brace her weight was thin; meatless. There was no ignoring the tendons and the bones beneath her skin. 

"Amerikanskaya," Yelena said, and she looked up at Natasha and smiled. "I'm hurt. You thought you'd let just anyone, did you? After all this time?" 

Natasha couldn't answer. She could only think: _get out, out_ ; and then Yelena launched herself forward and Natasha, mute, caught her off-center; picked her bodily up off the ground and pushed her back, toward the door. 

Yelena watched better than she had used to do; she chose her openings better. She landed a foot hard to the top of Natasha's foot, then a fist to Natasha's left cheek. She fought steadily; smartly; she didn't go for her gun or for her knives. Natasha kept a strong center and didn't try for subtle: reaching out with both hands and shoving Yelena's shoulders so she stumbled—back, and Natasha followed over the threshold out of the kitchen.

She almost relaxed, then. Almost took a breath but it rose up at her, the _next_ room, and the next, the horror of it: the gleaming whiteness and the shiny blonde wood. She thought of her little garret above their heads and then—gasping felt—she was back in Geneva, fifty years ago: under the water, Yelena had pushed her; under the ice; and Natasha would have, would have breathed in water and sunk until she thought of Stark files Red Room dossiers her limbs slow-stiffening hardening she was slowing and, and, and then she was fighting for air pushing upward, kicking upward, kicking out against the image of some child of a child of a child of a child looking down through the surface and seeing Natasha, frozen, just as she was; just as she is—

Yelena landed a roundhouse kick to Natasha's chest. Natasha's back hit the floor, and she thought: Yelena must have been in the air for a second or more. But she'd done it anyway, which meant she'd known she'd have time. She had watched Natasha; had seen Natasha. Natasha had let her see her there. Under the ice. 

It was Yelena, Natasha thought, shaking her head, dog-like, kicking up from her back to her feet. It really was Yelena, _her_ Yelena, this calm, commanding, whip-wiry woman with the sharp jaw and the sun-carved face, though her mouth was open and her chest was heaving as Natasha never remembered them doing after three minutes of fighting. Still: it was her. Natasha went at her hard, and close. Yelena had always liked the showy, the acrobatic. That kick, Natasha thought. It was Yelena's weakness. She got low and let Yelena rush her, then straightened up to wrap her arm around Yelena's neck: the side of Yelena's head pressed tight to Natasha's side and then she would look up.

She _would_ look up. Prevent Natasha's lock. But she didn't. Instead they scuffled. Close-pressed. Turned this way; that. Against the inside of her arm Natasha could feel the breath coming fast in Yelena's throat. She ought to have have bucked up; tried to get behind Natasha with her arms around Natasha's middle and her face pressed to the back of Natasha's neck, which Natasha might have allowed or might have countered by flipping Yelena instead, as she'd flipped her onto the concrete when they'd sparred in Lisbon during their year of dancing lessons. How Yelena, on her back, all of nineteen years old, had looked back up at Natasha, tonguing the corner of her mouth, her eyes ravenous. Now—Natasha didn't know. Couldn't, couldn't see. She'd got her arm locked and Yelena hadn't looked up. Yelena was panting. She hadn't used to pant until much later. Yelena grunted; gasped. Natasha felt—panicked. Yelena had tracked her down. She'd just knocked Natasha to the ground with a flying roundhouse. But she was winded from a five-minute scrap which Natasha could sustain indefinitely but which she could not stomach winning and could not—could _not_ —bear to throw. 

Natasha flexed her bicep around Yelena's throat and Yelena gurgled. Natasha thought _Please_ , with a vast frozen tundra spreading out over her head and she squeezed her eyes shut for no reason, no earthly reason; the child in the child in the Taika whispering _please, please, please_ while the other part, the Red Room part, moved to knee Yelena in the gut. 

But Yelena moved with her. She got her arm over Natasha's shoulder. The fingers of her other hand hooked under Natasha's arm and she pulled; dropped her weight; Natasha tried for a twist and Yelena shifted her balance. Got her arm all the way over Natasha's head. They circled, bodies arched out from their double headlock: Yelena's combat boots and Natasha's Patagonias scuffing the floor in front of Natasha's whitewashed wall. Natasha raised her foot for a front kick to Yelena's knee and Yelena twisted: stepped back and pulled Natasha over, onto her back, onto the floor. _Thank you_ , thought Natasha, _Oh, thank you_ ; though she knew it was only a reprieve. Only a moment. She was still a mile below any hope of her garret bedroom: still trapped here on her back on her white pine flooring, in front of her leather sofa in the teal accent that was supposed to tie together the ground floor. Under the ice. 

Yelena followed her down. Landed on top of her. She was heavier than Natasha remembered. Solider. She winced when she landed but what Natasha watched, what she recognized, was her face. The half-laughing rage in her face.

"You let some hoodlum do it," Yelena said. That roughened voice. Her chest pressed to Natasha's chest, the sound vibrated out of Yelena's body and into hers. It lit up every nerve where the two of them touched: a match-head pressed to skin. "After all you put me through. You let some stranger do it, instead of me. When I could have—"

"Oh yes?" Natasha said. She wasn't winded, but words came oddly. With difficulty. "You think so?" 

Yelena laughed. A little meanly. A little of the old, desperate, clawing Yelena. That smile, that—Natasha wanted to keep fighting. She wanted to scrap and wound and she wanted to press up. That cruel smile was just the same but Yelena's skin had freckled and spotted; was stretched in delicate crepe-paper folds over the bones of her. Eye socket to cheekbone. Chin to throat. Yelena's neck was ringed in soft creases angling from her front up toward her nape; and Natasha could dig in her thumbs—or—closing her eyes, press her mouth—

"You couldn't do it in Rhapastan," Natasha said. Her voice, to her own ears, sounded choked and more: high-pitched; like a child's. "Or in Sydney or Paris. Not even after I—after everything—" 

Yelena's hand tightened hard in Natasha's hair. 

"I got a start in Svalbard," Yelena said, and she held Natasha's head in place as she leaned down and kissed— _bit_ —dug her teeth into Natasha's scarred lip and her cheek, all along the long line where Yelena's knife had slashed open Natasha's face. Her little incisors which had used to be sharp were now flattened smooth. Natasha lay still and Yelena bore down on Natasha's lip until she broke the tension of the quivering membrane holding Natasha together and Natasha spilled out. Natasha jolted, back arching. Yelena came away with a red mouth. 

"That little nobody," Yelena said. She licked at Natasha's blood on her lip, mixing with her spit. "That child you set up to shoot you down in the street like a common civilian, did he leave a mark on you? Is there even a mark?"

"You think you'd have done?" Natasha said. The hook-caught creature inside her. Jealous, and thrashing. She did not say, _You think you could?_

Yelena grinned at her. She had every reason, Natasha realized, to look at Natasha's face and think exactly that. And Natasha thought: _Please_ , and _Show me, show me_ and _Try_. Sweat plastered silver curls to Yelena's cheek and her neck. Natasha could lean up into them and beg. She would. She was going to; she looked up at Yelena and felt—needful and—so close to the surface she could almost breathe. 

"You have no idea," Yelena told her, and then added: "little one," and Natasha—clicked snapped arched up; rolled them, snarling. Let Yelena yank on her hair as she hooked both Yelena's legs and rolled them and they grappled: Natasha on top past the rustic stained-wood coffee table, her elbow digging into Yelena's shoulder but Yelena flipped them; Yelena above her on the white-and-teal hook rug with Natasha's legs around Yelena's for Natasha to pull Yelena's wrist forward, twist under it; flip them again so that Yelena was under her, Yelena's thighs gripping her, until Yelena, pushing up from the ground, got a hand over Natasha's shoulder; grabbed at her shirt and yanked _up_ by the hem and Natasha—Natasha hadn't expected it; didn't stop it. It wasn't something Yelena would have done of old. Too pedestrian, not showy, but she'd done it now; and Yelena got Natasha's arms pinned and the shirt up over Natasha's head, blinding her for just the seconds it took for Yelena to roll up off her, grab the rope coiled at her thigh and lash Natasha's left wrist to the rod-iron fireplace crane bricked into the chimney. 

That was—quick-thinking. Resourceful in a way Yelena hadn't used to be. Natasha struck out with her free hand and Yelena dodged it; grabbed her wrist from the side and lashed it to the iron next to the first. Natasha cursed. Looked up at Yelena, who was sitting back on her heels, over her, one hand to her hip and one to her heart. 

Yelena was gasping; but then, so was Natasha. Natasha was probably flushed, too. Yelena's face dripped with sweat. She hadn't even taken off her leather jacket, and here Natasha was, slumped half-lying in her new-painted fireplace, bare from the waist up but for the t-shirt that still hung off her right arm. She looked at Yelena, and then up at her hands. Yelena Belova had learned ingenuity, sometime in the past few decades. Natasha could no doubt pull the entire apparatus out of the wall, but from the research she'd done when she'd stripped this room she knew there was a masonry piece the height of the fireplace bricked right into the chimney, so she'd have to more or less tear the fireplace apart to do it. Might take down half the house. And the crane had a knob at the end of its hook, so she couldn't slide the ropes off that way either. She yanked, and squirmed; thought: _Lovely_. It was well done: Natasha was caught, well enough to stay. It wasn't even Yelena's house. 

"Mmmm," said Yelena. She had mostly got her breath back. That new, darkened voice; Natasha shifted her hips. "Yes, little one. I could have done it so that it would leave a mark."

Yelena leaned forward; knelt up. It put her waistband at Natasha's eye level and Natasha was swamped with images of unzipping her jeans with her teeth; Yelena kneeling over her and pressing Natasha's head back against the bricks with her cunt; pressing Natasha down into the fireplace and riding her face—and Natasha closed her eyes, hot-swollen in her skin, so it took her a moment to realize that Yelena had only unsheathed the knife from her thigh holster. She dropped it handle-first onto Natasha's bare belly. Natasha looked down, expecting—but it was unfamiliar to her. A stout, black-handled bowie knife. She looked from it to Yelena, still kneeling over her.

"Oh," Yelena said, "you're full of yourself, aren't you?" 

"I'm not the one who showed up with that thing in my hand every time we met, for years."

"Hm," Yelena said. "Are you not?" Her tone was almost light. She reached down; touched Natasha's face in what seemed a caress until she dug her thumb into her cheek, tipping up her head to expose her throat. Natasha, her fish-heart twisting, knew what Yelena would see, and what she wouldn't. 

Yelena grunted. She let go Natasha's face, then sat back on her heels. Peeled off her leather jacket, and threw it back onto the hook rug. She looked at Natasha for a moment, then unfastened her holster, and dropped that on top of her jacket. Under both she was wearing a black tank, with a black sports bra under that. Her arms and her chest had the same sun-spotted crepe-paper quality as her face, and the same drape over muscle, and the same gorgeous disquieting sense of bone. "Maybe," she said, "I should have simply given you back the marks that you gave me."

Natasha whined. Did. Closed her eyes biting down on any—words, any _pl—ease_ but she couldn't, didn't keep it all in, and Yelena, kneeling over her, chuckled.

"Hm," Yelena said, again. Smiling. Natasha knew that smile or—or almost did. The mischief in it, sprinting together in Moscow. Dropping from Natasha's ceiling in Portland, thighs around Natasha's neck. She knew the shape but not the shadow in it and she wanted—she wanted so much to—all those shadows, now, in Yelena, that could be seen. Yelena was smiling. Yelena picked up her knife. 

"I could have cut you," Yelena told her. Still smiling at her. "I could have put you to sleep, like a good little girl, and then I could have sliced you up like a piece of meat."

Natasha must have—gasped, or. Closed her eyes. Flinched. She must have moved somehow because there was—was Yelena's hand again, hard on her chin. Making her look. Natasha blinked up at Yelena's face but Yelena angled Natasha's eyes to the side, toward—toward Yelena's left arm, which Yelena had raised, palm to the back of her own head and Natasha—oh, there. Elbow to shoulder-back: a long, faint, straight white line. It was there, still. Still. It remembered. Natasha remembered—remembered sitting on the lip of her bathtub, in front of her full-length mirror, as night after night her own body had closed up, closed off. Forgotten. 

Yelena saw her see. Let her look; then lowered her arm. 

"I could have done it like that," she said. "Being familiar with the process." Her fingers were rough on Natasha's face. Pushing at her cheek, at her lip; Natasha wanted to— _give_ , take her in, to be—flowing-soft taking of Yelena who was saying, "But I know you, don't I, little spider?" as Natasha, helpless, opened for her. "I knew you." She pushed her thumb into Natasha's mouth and Natasha bit; mouth _flooded_ , tongue pressed up against soft skin she leaned forward to gag on it but Yelena took it away, hissing then laughing while Natasha's tongue out, licking at— _lick_ — 

"You did," Natasha managed. "We knew each oth—fuck," as Yelena hummed, slicing hot-bright stinging into Natasha's skin, into the underside of Natasha's arm. 

"I knew you," Yelena said. The musing professor again. Intrigued, detached; Natasha a point of professional interest for her as Natasha, holding herself—still, _still_ , _transfixed_ , oh _hold_ —stared up voracious at her own blood, thin trickle of red seeping down. Down her arm, into her armpit. "I knew you," Yelena said again. "I know you wouldn't want to be asleep for such a thing."

The knife gave a little flick toward Natasha's elbow and then it was gone and Natasha—thrashed; gasped; the noise she made, she wanted— _viciously_ , more, more—

"Hush," Yelena said, "baby girl," and she slapped—stinging open-handed across across Natasha's face Natasha gasped and then Natasha— _laughed_. Giddy. She felt—dizzy, a little dizzy, like she could. Remember, barely. Being drunk.

"You know better than that," Yelena said, smiling, in her professor voice; and then for a moment it was like a barrier was snatched away: Yelena, fiery, furious, leant in and kissed her, hard, Natasha's back against the brick, Yelena's chest pressed to Natasha's chest sitting forward in her hips and Natasha moaned. Couldn't stop. _Don't stop_ , she thought, but Yelena did: pulling back with her eyes on Natasha's eyes and her tongue licking at the corner of her mouth, her empty left hand on Natasha's cheek. 

"You must be good," Yelena told her. "Be nice, and still, or you'll disturb the lines," and then—"Hey," because—because smarting hot, Natasha's filling eyes. 

Natasha closed them. Close—sealing up, she—had surfaced so completely and now knitting back together over the top of her the water the, the ice, she couldn't—wouldn't—oh. Yelena's hand, on her face. 

Points of contact: Natasha, her. Back against the brick. Wrists pressed to, to rope and to iron. Yelena's fingers on her cheek. Soft touching her like. A mother, or. So Natasha imagined. 

"I'd like to see you," Natasha grit out. "Do your—do your worst." She opened her eyes; gathered herself up into her shell. Looked Yelena in the face. "I remember being regularly disappointed with your detail work."

Back in the nineties. Back then baby Yelena would have laughed her mean laugh. Hurt Natasha some more and Natasha would have egged her on, but now for a long moment Yelena kept still, just looking at her. Palm on Natasha's cheek. Natasha made herself keep meeting Yelena's gaze: long tendrils of ice-panic sliding down Natasha's spine. Yelena nodded; then, hummingbird-quick and precise, moved her hand across Natasha's chest to fasten over the long cut up her arm.

Bright, searing. Everything in Natasha drawn together, focused together and then—dispersed. Rippled out.

"Not my worst, surely," Yelena said. She shifted the knife; brought the blade to Natasha's other arm. She sliced the t-shirt away from Natasha's arm. And then: a white-hot trail. _Sharp_ Natasha thought, and was still, _still_ though she whined, as Yelena sliced into her skin with utter focus. Practiced. She'd done this, Natasha thought. Done it and done a lot of it: the knife went where she asked, quick but unhurried, a perfect, perfect, hurting bleeding line. "Surely," said Yelena, with that little flick just under Natasha's elbow, "something closer to my best."

She took the knife away and Natasha twisted. Squeezed her thighs together and nuzzled—nuzzled into her own shoulder. Licked out; licked. Could taste only salt and skin but she could feel them: Yelena's lines, high-pitched hot hurting down either side of her. Holding her, side to side. An embrace. 

Yelena hummed. Then—on Natasha's belly, the cold of the knife-handle. Over her, Yelena shifting. Natasha shaking her head had to _work_ to bring herself back to, to looking out at the world: Yelena, above her, pulling off her own shirt and her sports bra. Her breasts lay soft against her ribcage where the skin was delicate, spotted, like her hands and her arms but paler, because sheltered from the sun. The softness of Yelena now, Natasha thought, blinking, wanting to lean up, to take in her mouth—

"I'd have the choice," Yelena said, "of where to cut you next." She lifted her arm, and twisted so that Natasha could see the thin scar in her armpit. "That's one," she said. "Could just." She picked up the knife; ran the dull edge hard down Natasha's bleeding right arm. It wasn't cutting her so she let herself press into it; and her hips into Yelena, who said, "Join it up with these." 

"Or," Natasha said. "Hnnn?" 

"Or," Yelena said. She lifted her left breast. Leaned in so Natasha could see the paired arcs underneath. Thin white lines, one at the crease near her ribcage, one around the edge of the areola; with a vertical scar connecting them. Natasha flushed hot. Couldn't—that wasn't Tony's doctors. Tony's doctors who, back then, had worked on people other than Tony; Tony's doctors who hadn't put Natasha back the way she was either, not entirely. _Men_ , Natasha had thought, disgusted, sitting on the lip of her bathtub in her old New York apartment three blocks from New York Presbyterian—decades before they'd moved him into his private suite of rooms there, hooked to his own machines—watching her body erase what she'd done. That arced I shape, that wasn't Tony's team. That was Yelena; something Yelena'd chosen, and Natasha—she couldn't help it, couldn't stop it, she leaned up, straining her shoulders to pull against the ropes, and licked. Licked, oh. Mouth to skin; she could drown. Could follow the scar tissue with her tongue: the rough-smooth toughness, the difference in texture. Above her, Yelena breathed and Natasha wanted—she wanted more, she kicked her foot against her fireplace-brick and pressed forward and Yelena gave a little "Oh" and an even smaller gasp and leaned into her, letting her—letting her lave; suck; nuzzle Yelena's soft, marked skin; follow the scars with her lips and her tongue and then starving take the nipple into her mouth and suckle. Suck. Her tied hands clenching-unclenching with the need to touch. 

"Oh," Yelena said. Petting her hair. "Little one." 

Mouth full, Natasha whimpered. 

"You want those, then," Yelena said, and Natasha nod—nodded. Gurgled. Eyes fastened shut. Yelena stroked her hair, stroked; petted; and then made a fist hard in her hair and pulled Natasha's head back and Natasha gasped. 

"I could have given you those," said Yelena. She leaned in and kissed again—quick, hard—too fast for Natasha to kiss back but she wanted, she wanted to, she wanted. And then the knife in Yelena's hand and—"Very still now, little one"— _piercing_ —

"Aungh," said Natasha. Holding still, _hold_ , aching. Still. Saying, " _Ohhhhh, oh, oh_." 

"I could have taken you away from your home," Yelena said. Her voice even now controlled; musing; though between phrases she breathed hard through her mouth. "I could have cut you to look like someone else entirely."

"Yelena, fuck," Natasha breathed. She wanted to pant; to writhe; to impale herself on Yelena's knife but she kept her body still and her breaths long; steady; as Yelena's carved into her sharp hot stinging arcs. Right nipple _sharp_ ; left. And against her ribcage, biting. Slicing, not stopping, unstopping. Cutting her open. Natasha's thighs squeezed hard together and Yelena, sitting on her hips now, gave an amused little hum, slicing a hot smarting swoop under Natasha's left breast. Sternum to underarm. Natasha kept still but she didn't keep quiet. 

Yelena didn't pull back when she'd finished, just held up the knife so Natasha could see. Natasha saw it and moaned; squirmed; pressed up her hips under Yelena's hips as Yelena, leaning forward, kissed her. Natasha licked at her and whined. For a half-second _sucked_ on Yelena's tongue and her vision sparked white she wanted to. Tongue out wanted. Yelena bit her neck and dug thin fingers hard into the gashes in her left breast and Natasha's whole body jerked, out of her control. 

"You wanted someone to take you out?" Yelena said. Her voice wavered, just slightly. She cleared her throat. Kept her lips by Natasha's ear; Natasha nodded. Pulled against the ropes that kept her from pulling Yelena against her. Grinding. Pressing together. "Make sure nobody ever saw you again?" Yelena said. "I could do that." 

"Yelena," Natasha said. She twisted her head. Wanted to put her mouth—but Yelena grunted. Drew back. Was unbending her knees; pushing herself to her feet. Was setting down her knife.

" _No_ ," Natasha said. Panic-jolted she _yanked_ at her ropes, and behind her the bricks creaked. Flooded cold she couldn't leave her, Natasha thought, Yelena couldn't, she couldn't—

"Hey!" Yelena said. She crouched down again: hand to Natasha's thigh through her jeans. 

Natasha stilled. Breathed: wracked but steady. Yelena's weathered hand warm on her leg. Slick, all down Natasha's torso. She couldn't see what Yelena'd done, couldn't see any of the throbbing, the aching-smarting lacerations but there was blood smeared all down her belly; her sides. The bricks slick under her ass. Yelena'd done this to her. _So much blood_ , Natasha thought, woozy. She'd done it to her, with that warm and steady hand. 

"There should be more," Natasha said. Yelena just watched her. Rubbed at her leg, and didn't move. Natasha said, "There has to be more, there must be, when they took—there must be."

"You know there is," Yelena said, but she didn't move. Blue-grey eyes on her eyes Natasha wasn't breathing, looking back at her until Yelena gave a little nod. 

"Stay still for me," she said, and Natasha gasped "Yes," and made herself a statue while Yelena, with another little grunt, pushed herself back up to her feet. 

With Yelena standing the lip of the fireplace blocked her face, so that Natasha—breath-in breath-out—saw only Yelena's calves and her thighs; her prominent wrists and her knuckles, skin thin over bone. Yelena's black boots. Yelena's knife, fuck. So many places Natasha could put her mouth. Yelena's hanging breasts and the folds of loose skin at the waist of her jeans. 

Her hands moved to the button on her fly and she undid it. Undid the zipper. Pushed them down her hips along with her underwear. She still had her boots on so the clothing would only go so far, but it was far enough for Natasha to see, and Yelena got close enough that she could look her fill. A whole network of those thin white lines, Natasha's scars: scooped out on either side of Yelena's hips; and from the sides of her ass down her thighs, down under where her jeans still hid the ends of them. Others, too: marks unrelated to Natasha. An old burn down her left flank: acid, Natasha thought. A pink arc on her right side, mirroring the curve of her ass: recent enough Natasha could still see where it'd been sewn up with stitches. That didn't look like business. It looked medical. A hip replacement, or—it was strange to think of Yelena recovering in a hospital, but perhaps she had. And on her right thigh that, that old—Natasha had to—she pressed forward, pulling against her hands, her shoulders bent back; Yelena made a little noise of surprise but Natasha's body let her twist herself, pull herself far enough to press her tongue, as she'd used to do, into the old knife wound high up on Yelena's inner thigh: the one that had healed before Yelena and Natasha had ever met. 

Natasha licked. Kissed. Yelena's hands came down and petted through her hair, which was sweat-matted and half-pulled down out of its elastic. Natasha gathered skin into her mouth; sucked. Sucked. Eyes closed. Bent forward and bleeding she ached, and kissed. Yelena gripped her arm, high up near her shoulder; squeezed and the pain sharpflared—pooled—dripped down into Natasha along with the smell of her, of Yelena, her sweat and her cunt and the taste of her skin. 

Softly Yelena made a fist. She tugged Natasha back by the hair and Natasha went but she couldn't stop her crying-out. 

"You want more?" Yelena said.

She wanted her mouth full; wanted Yelena's skin. Wanted more. The hurt showing on her skin. She squirmed. 

"Well?" 

"Nnnn," Natasha said. Swallowed. Swallowed everything in her mouth and managed, "Yes."

Yelena shifted back, and her face came into view again; she did her jeans back up and then bent down by Natasha's feet. So far away. She unlaced Natasha's boots, and pulled them off. Pulled off Natasha's socks. Climbed up her and Natasha gasped and Yelena pulled Natasha's jeans down Natasha's hips and her legs and off. Then she crouched down by Natasha's hips. Her boot slid briefly in the blood slicking the fireplace floor and she caught herself, hand to Natasha's stretched-shoulder which flared again, noticeably soft-quieter with pain than moments before, and Natasha shut her eyes.

"Please," she said, though she knew it would be only a reprieve. Licked her lips and said, "More, please, Yelena, please, _please_ —" until Yelena hushed her, and picked up her knife. 

"All right," Yelena said. "I can do that." And then: cruel _sharp_ piercing down the outside of her left thigh; Natasha moaned. "Shhh, little one," Yelena said, and Natasha forced herself—still, didn't press into it, didn't lean into the knife as it sliced her from ass to just above her knee. Yelena's knife: steady, unrelenting. That little flick at the end and then Yelena held up the knife so she could see it and Natasha moaned. Throat wide open. Twisted so that the fresh cut pressed into painted brick and pressed-squirmed. Against the open wound she could feel every crack, every piece of grit. Yelena's strong warm little hand fastened hard on her right hip. 

"Still," Yelena told her. Natasha nodded, gasping. Nodded, and held herself still for Yelena's knife splitting her open again, ass to knee, twinning the mark on her other side. Yelena's marks on Natasha's thighs like Yelena's were Natasha's and like Yelena Natasha would carry them—would. 

Natasha gasped. Giddy-dizzy; spinning, with a faint sickness underneath. She gasped; breathed; dripped everywhere, became porous and leaking as Yelena's eyes stayed trained on Yelena's knife, in Yelena's warm hand. Yelena gave that little flick at the side of Natasha's knee, then held up the knife and watched Natasha as Natasha, groaning, thrashed. 

Hands opening-closing in their ropes Natasha rolled her hips on the wet bricks. Rough-hot _press_ and the sharp wet flare along her right leg, pain in a burst that reverberated down into her shin and her toes and she twisted, crooking her left knee to press her left thigh down on top of the right leg, grind— _grinding_ her hips into nothing and her fresh-cut thigh into the brick and what dirt there was. Natasha whimpered and Yelena. Yelena watched her. Soft hand on her ass. Eyes narrowed on Natasha's body; on the way it moved.

"I could mark you up," Yelena said. She'd said as much but her voice now was low; strange. Natasha made a noise half-laugh half-sob and she pressed her soaked thighs hard together, her right leg down into the floor, grinding. Her mouth was open; she could have been speaking. Could have been begging Yelena. Might be begging her. 

"All right," Yelena said. She didn't sound anymore like the bored trainer of new recruits but Natasha couldn't think what she did sound like because Yelena hit her. Smacked her across the cut on her her left thigh and when Natasha moaned she rolled her. Got her flat on her back, panting. Sharp, woozy. Flying. Yelena slapped Natasha's thighs apart and Natasha panted up at her. 

"Please," she said, "more. Yelena, more, more," and Yelena, grunting, didn't slice or trace but drove her blade hard into the flesh of Natasha's right thigh: brutal, unwarned; so close to her femoral artery had to be, just the place where, on Yelena—

"Yes _fuck_ ," Natasha said, "Oh, Yelena—"

"You want me to mark you?" Yelena said. She was breathing hard. Panting. "You want scars, you want mine and everything that—"

"Oh," Natasha said again, and she said it again, and said it again and was running out of air. Pain radiating down her leg and up her side, her back, her cunt. Growling-sparking, couldn't think, it knocked her breathless, she couldn't—couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. 

"Yeah," Yelena said, staring down at Natasha with a curl of her mouth like the old Yelena, the Yelena from Rhapastan and Basel and everything after. "That looks like I remember." 

And she bent down; pressed her mouth to Natasha's bleeding thigh. Natasha's moan was thready, she felt—alight, jerked askew from her skin and electric-shorting, chemical burned, mouth open eyes open watching Yelena lick and suck at the gash she'd cut in Natasha's skin as with her left hand she detached her knife-sheath from her thigh. A click- _click_ of the knife sliding home and then Yelena turned the thing in her hand; grasped it by the sheath and pulled her face back from Natasha's thigh to press the knife-handle inside her dripping cunt. 

Natasha screamed. Arched; and panted. Yelena fucked her with her knife, her face smeared with Natasha's blood. 

"Make," Natasha said, "hurt."

"Mmm," Yelena said. She crowded forward, her leg pushing Natasha's thighs further apart, rough denim against the wound in her thigh as Yelena leant forward with her left hand against the bricks behind Natasha's head so that she could press her whole torso against Natasha's torso, _press_ scars to the cuts on Natasha and Natasha moaned into Yelena's mouth as Yelena kissed her. Hard biting. Grinding her hips through her jeans against Natasha's wounded thigh, left hand holding her up with her right still bent between them, awkwardly angled but with just enough purchase to hold her knife in place for Natasha to fuck herself on it. Yelena shoved; grunted; panted against her mouth and Natasha, with pain—radiating—floating—

"I wish i' w's your," she got out, "fuck, y'r knife, old white knife."

"Unh," Yelena said. "Maybe I'll. Cut you until you pass out, and you'll wake up a whole different person"; and "Yelena," Natasha shouted, and clenched her thighs tight around Yelena's knife and shuddered and split and _burst_. 

In the moment—

—after—

In the moment after.

Yelena was touching her, still. Rutting against her, still, but slow—slower. She had her jeans undone and her hand down the front of them and was moving and Natasha, thighs shaky, chemical taste in her mouth, lifted her hips for Yelena to press down into. Yelena who was watching her. Those narrowed eyes. Darting between Natasha's arms; her breasts; her bloody belly. Looking at all that she'd done to her: sliced-up, and panting. And Yelena watching rode Natasha's thigh, rising up and over—and over—dragging her hips. Natasha woozy; overclocked; breathed into the rhythm of Yelena's breath timed to the waves of her motion as she pressed forward—up and back, watching Natasha and watching and watching her and only closing her eyes at the very end, when she grit her teeth and moaned through them, softly, hips stilling; tipping her head back; holding herself steady: still. 

And then Yelena breathed—out. Out. A long breath. 

She pushed herself off the wall and sat back, with grunt, onto her own heels. It pinched the cuts on Natasha's legs: a soft, barely-blooming pain. Natasha's eyes stung and she blinked hard. Yelena sat there, recovering: hand to her heart, with her eyes wide open, fixed still on Natasha. Yelena's breath was ragged and gasping and then smoothing. Settling. Natasha was—thirsty; trembling. Yelena was watching her skin. 

"That," Yelena said, at last, "is amazing."

"Don't," Natasha whispered. She felt ill. Shaking. Needed to—to close her eyes so she did but she still felt it: Yelena's warm-soft fingers, trailing gentle down the underside of Natasha's fresh and unmarked arm. 

Something—curdled inside Natasha. Sour; bad. She would be sick. She wanted to—to curl in on herself. Bring her knees up but she was pinned. Needed to get away and needed nobody to see that she needed it. Natasha _felt_ mortal; weak; like Yelena had reached into her and cut out something essential; but when she pulled hard on her ropes a thick fissure still crackled up the back of the fireplace: rumbled and cracked. Lightning-shaped. 

"Hey, shhh," Yelena was saying. "Natasha."

Natasha could feel her skin knitting back up. 

"Sh," Yelena said again, "Natasha, _stop_ ," but she couldn't tell if she was doing anything and anyway she couldn't stop, she couldn't, the bricks around her were groaning and crumbling and all over Natasha's body her skin against her will was joining itself back together. "Hush," Yelena said, "rebyonka," but Natasha couldn't, she couldn't. A chunk of brick hit the side of her head and " _Natalia_ " Yelena said and slapped her face and Natasha just—dropped.

Dissolved. Brick dust on her face as she wept.

"All right," Yelena was saying. "All right, hey, Natalia." That smoke-low voice: Natasha clung. Shocky, everywhere trembling. Yelena was leaning up now, Natasha's wet face pressed to her soft scarred weathered breasts as Yelena unknotted the ropes. Natasha's right arm dropped, then her left, but weeping, shaking, she held them carefully apart from her sides. She didn't want—didn't want them. Shouldn't touch. 

They were, of course, pristine. 

"Get out of here," Natasha said. Couldn't stand for anyone. "Get out of my house." 

Yelena was massaging her wrists; she didn't answer. Natasha was lying naked in her cracked and probably ruined fireplace, caked with brick dust and her own drying blood, and she could barely feel a smart when she rolled onto what had been, twenty minutes ago, the bleeding gash in her thigh. Yelena shifted to allow the movement. She kept touching her, though. Kept touching her wrist. 

"Go," Natasha said again, through her teeth, between messy wracking sobs. "I never stayed for you, I wouldn't, I didn't, get out, get out." Yelena didn't move. She massaged her wrists and then touched her back and when she did push herself to her feet it was only to fetch Natasha's new teal-and-white chenille throw from the sofa, and bring it back to the fireplace. 

Yelena rolled Natasha, still weeping, so that she could bundle her into the throw. Natasha thought she couldn't bear it, couldn't _stand_ it if Yelena touched her arms or her breasts or her t- _thigh_ , fuck, but she didn't. She got the blanket around Natasha and got Natasha to her feet, new-colt-shaky, and made Natasha lean on her as they crossed the room. When they got to the new teal sofa she pitched Natasha gently onto her side on the cushions. 

There Natasha lay. Sideways she looked at the broken fireplace, smeared and spattered with blood. It looked like there'd been a murder: a sight she knew well. Only, only there hadn't. There hadn't. After all, nothing had happened. Natasha's teeth were chattering. 

"Do it again," Natasha said. Couldn't stop herself. She closed her eyes. Shook. Wet trails seeped between her lashes; across the bridge of her nose. By her bent-up knees the couch dipped: Yelena scooted her back, to make room. 

"Shush," Yelena said. "Little one." Her thin, soft little hand, on Natasha's forehead. In Natasha's hair. In films and theatre productions and on late-night TV and holovision in hotel rooms across the world Natasha had seen mothers sitting so with their fevered and ailing children. Someone had sat so, once, with Yelena. Her grandmother, Natasha remembered. Her auntie. That apartment in Moscow. Yelena's thumb rubbed up, over and over: from the bridge of Natasha's nose up to her hairline.

"Do it again," Natasha said again. "Do it again, put them back."

Yelena sighed. "If you want me to," she told her, "I will."

Natasha nodded, jerky. For a long time they stayed there. Natasha's breath evened out. She watched blood dry on the white of her fireplace and let Yelena's thumb trace up—and up. And up. It made the softest shish-ing noise. Natasha closed her leaking eyes and listened to the sound of Yelena's skin on her skin. Yelena's breath, and her own. Outside, a bird called. Those little grey songbirds. They were starting to arrive back, with the spring. 

"I was angry, myself," Yelena said, at last, "that I couldn't bring your old knife."

Natasha, surprised, made a shaky sound. A half-snort, with a question mark at the end. 

"Would've been more fitting," Yelena said. Her thumb still tracing its path on Natasha's forehead. "I was in a _rage_ I couldn't bring it to Svalbard. But it broke years ago. 2007? '08?" 

"Mmm?" Natasha said. She pressed her face into Yelena's leg. It was warm, and smelled like blood. 

"Mmm," said Yelena. Low; unhurried. "A fight in Algiers. Pierre Foulard. Thing broke off in his fucking gut, of all places, did you know him?"

"Uh," Natasha said. "I." Her voice came out muzzy. Smeared, unsteady. She cleared her throat. "Ummm—I broke his arm once. After that. Long time. Calais, uh. Twenty… I don't know. Two?"

"Doesn't seem sufficient payback," Yelena said. "I loved that knife."

Natasha laughed. A wet little thing. She shifted, gingerly, onto her back, and looked up at Yelena. Her lovely messy silver curls. Her blue eyes, and her face still smeared with Natasha's blood. 

"Made me feel like the Black Widow," Yelena said, "just to hold it."

" _That_ old broad." 

Yelena's mouth curled. "Mmmm," she said. 

This woman; and the girl she had been. Natasha fumbled a hand out of her blanket cocoon. She reached for Yelena's hand. Yelena let her take it. There were other noises outside now. The breeze in the eaves. A loon, far away on the lake.

"Well." Natasha said, at last. "Foulard died of cancer. Ten, fifteen years ago. So I guess we missed our chance."

"Damn the man," Yelena said. She sounded magnificently unconcerned. Almost tender. 

Natasha looked down at their hands: her thumb, pressing into Yelena's palm. 

"You wouldn't want to be the Black Widow anymore, anyway," she said. "Would you? You're so—you've become—"

"Oh, have I? Do tell," Yelena said. Natasha laughed. She shook her head, then. Looked away. What could she say?

Through the window the sun shone full into the room: it was the middle of the afternoon. At some point, decades ago, Natasha probably would have found that strange. 

"So've you, I would say," Yelena said. Her hand drifted down to Natasha's temple; her cheek. Traced the long scar down from her cheekbone to her upper lip. Natasha closed her eyes. 

"I opened it back up," she told her. "Every night. For three years, after Svalbard. I didn't want it to heal up, I wanted. I wanted to keep it. I wanted. To be sure it took." 

Yelena didn't answer. She sat there, one hand in Natasha's and the other on Natasha's face. That bird kept up its song outside and a truck rattled past on the lake road and they breathed together for a few seconds; a few minutes; until Natasha opened her eyes again and gave a little smile. Yelena leaned forward, slowly, and kissed so gently her upper lip, at the edge of her one and precious scar. 

Natasha tugged on her wrist, then. Tugged her over until Yelena, getting the idea, shifted to crawl up in back of Natasha on the sofa, and curled around her. Her face pressed into the back of Natasha's neck, and they lay there together. Quiet. Natasha let her thoughts drift. She thought about the structural integrity of this house, which was probably compromised by the new cracks in the chimney. She thought about the bloodstains on her chenille throw, and on the upholstery of her sofa; and she thought about the child's bed upstairs, in the little garret that overlooked the lake. She wondered what Yelena would think, if she saw the dust and the spiders and Natasha's bedroll. How the surface looked, to Yelena; and how the ice. She wondered if Yelena would come up with her, if she asked; and whether she would ask. She remembered climbing through the air ducts of Yelena's Moscow apartment, looking at her surgery scars and her Afghan hound and her answering machine with the message from her auntie Olga, _seething_ with jealousy, with no way to close the gap between them. Yelena wrapped an arm around Natasha's middle. She snaked a hand into her blanket cocoon, and touched Natasha's belly. Her fingers rested just where Natasha's stretch marks had used to be, before Stark's surgeons took them away, and didn't put them back. Just a bit longer, Natasha thought, letting her eyes close. Just stay a bit longer, now.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third title I've pilfered from TS Eliot. I thought about changing it, but on the second editing pass I realized that this whole story is kind of an unintentional Black Widow/ _The Waste Land_ crossover. There are unwelcome spring flowers, a young man carbuncular, childhood memories of European sleds, hyacinths, a speaker who is neither living nor dead, unhappy pregnancy memories, the threat or promise of death by water, wrinkled female breasts, the list goes on. So I guess: thanks for the material, Tom.


End file.
